


Rugby's A Girl's Sport Too

by lightsoflenore



Category: Ackley Bridge (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-06
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-22 22:51:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15592536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsoflenore/pseuds/lightsoflenore
Summary: After Mr. Simpson announces in assembly the start of a Girl's Rugby team, Tahira Abad knows exactly what she wants to do with her time in school.





	1. Chapter 1

"This morning's assembly was so boring, what kind of girl would actually want to join a rugby team just to get thrown around?" Alya told the group of girls sat around her at lunch, scoffing as she inspected the contents of her sandwich for hairs or nails.

Tahira watched her, biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself retaliating with some kind of essay about how good rugby is, and how no one cares about Alya's opinion. They were good friends, they'd known each other since Tahira was in year 5, and despite Alya being in a year above, they still ended up talking on the playground after Alya asked Tahira and her friends if she could join their game of tig when her 'best friend in the whole world' as Alya called her, wasn't in because she had chicken pox. Then their friendship just grew from there.

"Lesbians, that's who." Aneesa sneered before pausing to look at Tahira. "Oh, sorry. Not like you, I mean like that over there" Tahira followed Aneesa's finger to where she was pointing. She was pointing at Sam Murgatroyd, the one who just a few weeks ago, announced her lesbianism with "DYKE" wrote across her forehead. Either way, Aneesa's point was void, it didn't matter how masculine she thought Sam looked, because Tahira was still the one that wouldn't mind getting thrown around by girls in rugby.

"I'm pretty sure 'that over there' isn't her name, and she looks more like a football player anyway," Tahira said, Aneesa raised her eyebrows in shock. "And anyway, Aneesa, why is it that lads don't get called gay for playing rugby? They get thrown about just as much as lasses do." Aneesa and Alya gave each other a distressed look, Alya sighed loudly as she turned back to look at Tahira.

"You aren't planning on joining the rugby team are you?"

"Maybe so." Tahira stood up and walked over to the nearest bin, tipping her leftovers into it and sliding her tray onto the nearest tray rack. It didn't matter what her friends thought of rugby, she liked it and wanted to join the team, and that's all she cared about as she left the hall.

There was a poster outside of the girls' bathroom about joining the club, 'Every Thursday After School, All Years Welcome -Mr. Simpson'. It seemed stupid that they hadn't been told earlier in the week, with them only finding out on a Thursday, barely anyone would show up. Luckily for Tahira, she had P.E. last 2 lessons, so she had kit. It didn't say how long it was on for, but it was most likely 2 hours or something like that. It didn't matter, she was going to it either way. Chances are she wouldn't be able to drag any of her friends along with her, but she'd likely be able to get along with any one else who showed up. If anyone showed up that was. That was the one thing playing on her mind, the possibility that she'd be the only one that wanted to join the team. It was highly unlikely, but it was always a possibility.

People walked past and looked at Tahira in confusion, she was just stood there, staring at the poster, lost in thought. She'd been stood there for a few minutes as well, so some of the people that had went into the bathrooms came out to her still stood there, and just hurried away from the girl frozen in front of a poster for girl's rugby.

At the end of P.E. Mr Simpson was trying to convince the class to stay back for rugby, those of them who did want to stay back for rugby stayed standing around on the netball court, it would have been pointless for them to go into the changing rooms just to come back out again. The girls who hated even the thought of playing rugby hurried away to the changing rooms, there was about 10 minutes left of the lesson it's self, so if no one from her class wanted to join the team, she'd be standing on her own talking to Mr. Simpson for longer than she'd be able to handle. Luckily enough though, she wasn't the only one who wanted to join the rugby team out of her class.

There were 3 of them that stayed on the Netball court after everyone else ran away to the safety of the changing rooms, away from the thought of sports. Tahira Abad, Amina Mir, and Sam Murgatroyd. Thank God neither Aneesa or Alya would dare join the rugby team, then she'd be proven wrong about the Football Lesbian thing. Mr. Simpson looked over at us to see who actually showed up, it was obvious he was disappointed that there wasn't more girls that wanted to play rugby, but it shouldn't really have been all that surprising. 

"Right, uh, we'll be waiting a bit for the bell to go and girls from other years to show up, so just talk amongst yourselves for a bit." He was a bit behind on saying that though, as Amina and Tahira were already talking about how they both expected to be the only one in the class to join the team, and how they were happy the other had joined. Sam stood a few feet away, throwing a netball at the wall until Mr. Simpson asked her to help him take the equipment to the storage cupboard, so she was 'at least doing something productive'.

After a few more minutes, 2 people showed up. A girl in year 13 called Meghan, and the year 7 who nut-kicked Cory Wilson a few weeks ago, Chelsea. Mr. Simpson looked like a baby that just dropped it's favourite stuffed animal as he realized there probably wasn't anyone else showing up. It was sad to see him like that, so Meghan piped up.

"To be fair sir, we did only find out about it this morning, so some people won't have kit, there'll probably be more next week." Mr. Simpson smiled, and nodded slightly.

"Yeah, hopefully. Anyway we might as well get started on some throwing techniques instead of worrying about how many people are on the team," He sounded slightly more happy when he said that, and he opened the bag of rugby balls. "Get into pairs and grab a ball, I'll work with one of yous, don't worry, no threes ruining the party here."


	2. Chapter 2

After a while of throwing rugby balls back and forth with Mr. Simpson's occasional comment on technique or a shout of "Perfect Spiral!" he called the girls in to talk intimidation tactics.

"Right ladies, if you want to knock your opponent off there game, you need to intimidate them. What are some things that are intimidating that you could use in rugby?" He stood with his hands on his hips, watching the girls as their brains whirred trying to think of a response.

"What's that dance the New Zealand team does again? That's well scary." Said Amina, much to Mr. Simpson's dismay.

"The... the dance? Do you mean the Haka, Amina?" Amina shrugged in response, as if it was just known to everyone else in the world apart from Mr. Simpson as "That dance the New Zealand team do."

"Height!" Meghan was the tallest on the team by a long shot, she was about 5"10, the second tallest was Amina, who was 5"6. So she was the only one who could use that to her advantage.

"Like JoJo Siwa?" Tahira responded.

"What... what?" Everyone looked at her like she was an idiot.

"Yeah, JoJo Siwa's like 5"9, that's pretty intimidating, I mean imagine that 15 year old baby running at you full speed?" Everyone was still looking at her like she had her head on backwards. Then they opted for ignoring her comment entirely.

"Yeah, Meghan. Height's a good advantage in some cases, but it can also be a disadvantage if there aren't many other tall people on the team, especially in a scrum. Any more?" He looked around the court again, waiting for someone to start talking.

"Strength would be one, wouldn't it?" Mr. Simpson clasped his hands together, and grinned, not disimilar to that of an old woman asked about knitting.

"Yes! Strength is incredibly important." He continued rambling on about intimidation for about ten more minutes. It was shocking he could talk for that long, but the girls listened anyway. They chose to be there, no one forced them to.

When the girls were dismissed to the changing rooms, they were all talking about how cool it was to finally have a girl's rugby team. Then Meghan started talking about how small the team actually was. 

"I hope it is just that no one who wanted to join brought kit today, and not that no one wants to join the team." It was likely part both. Some girls won't have brought kit because it was sprung on them only that morning, and some just don't like rugby and wouldn't dare go with in 5 feet of even a poster about rugby.

"We could always try to convince people to join the team though, couldn't we?" Tahira asked, at least trying to give some ideas as opposed to just listening to Meghan talking about how great a sport rugby is. Meghan turned and looked at Tahira like she was the best thing on Earth at that moment.

"Oh my god I never even thought about that! That's a great idea!" Then Meghan started talking about handing out flyers and an actual plan of what kind of people to target, while everyone else was just thinking about forcing their mates to join the team or just asking random students and hoping for the best. She continued talking about her plan and the flyers and who should say what and who should ask who until people started to leave the changing rooms to go home.

On the way home, Tahira pulled out her phone and opened a text from Alya.

'You didn't actually join the rugby team, did you?'  
'Mayhaps, mayhaps not'  
'That isn't a word?'  
'Allegedly'  
'Oh my god, I can't believe you actually joined the team.'  
'jrhgkjbg I can lol'

At that Alya just left her on read, probably to tell Aneesa how shocking it was that Tahira had joined the team and wasn't just joking. It shouldn't have been surprising, Tahira always used to say about how she wished there was a girl's rugby team. Alya should have been the least surprised either way, Tahira played rugby for the local club when she was in year 5, and back then Alya at least acted like it was the coolest thing ever when Tahira started rambling about rugby, even if she didn't really care. Alya went to watch her matches, even if she didn't really get what the point of the game was, and acted like she knew what Tahira was saying when she told her about something that helped the team score, or stopped them. Tahira listened when Alya told her about gymnastics and different flips and stuff like that, because she knew she'd get to tell her about tackling when she stopped. It was like clockwork, they listened to eachothers sports ramblings back then even though they didn't care. Now Alya just openly didn't care that Tahira was playing rugby again and actively didn't like that she was. It did bother Tahira, but then again Alya barely cared about anything apart from herself lately.

Rugby practice only lasted around an hour and a half so it was still early by the time Tahira got home. Some of her mates had made plans to go sit on a field and just complain and talk about life, so she decided to go join them. It was better than just sitting around doing nothing, plus there was always some good gossip flying around, some people just seem to know everything.

There were only 3 of them on the field. Tahira, Razia, and Chloe. Normally they'd all sit in a circle, but there being only three of them it ended up as a triangle instead, and a very askew triange at that. The 3 of them sat there, complaining about school, life and everything else.

"So did you join the rugby team then?" Razia turned slightly to look at Tahira and wait for a response, Chloe watched her as well.

"Yeah, there was only a few other lasses that showed up though." Tahira sounded disappointed. Even though she'd acted like it was weird how much Meghan wanted more people to join, she did understand. If there weren't enough girls showing up, they wouldn't be able to start a proper team, which meant no actual matches.

"How many do you need to form a team like?" Chloe asked, leaning a bit further forward.

"7 people total for a Sevens team. Shocking, I know." The other two laughed at the little comment and then Razia looked back to Tahira.

"If yous need more people for your team, we could join it as well," Chloe looked shocked, even though she was the one to ask how many there were for a team, she somehow didn't realize she was signing herself up for it, and glared at Razia. "Won't we Chloe?" Chloe just nodded in response, clearly not all that happy.

"More people will show up next week anyway, though. Still, better safe than sorry." Tahira grinned at the two of them, it was nice of Razia to offer them forward, especially when Razia wasn't the biggest fan of the sport, and Chloe just hated sports full stop.

"Who's on the team already like?" Tahira paused for a second before answering.

"There's me, Amina, that year 7 who nut-kicked Cory Wilson," The girls laughed as they remembered that iconic moment. "And some girl in year 13." Tahira decided it was in her best interest not to mention that Sam was on the team to Razia. They weren't exactly the best of friends after Razia tried to stab her a few weeks back. Tahira knew Razia would realize on Thursday when she came to the club, but that was a problem for later.

"Oh so you only need one more lass to start an actual team then?" Tahira nodded, still thinking about how bad of an idea it actually was to not tell them, but knowing it was a bit late to just slip in that she'd conveniently forgotten that Sam was on the team as well. Razia was talking about the rugby uniform or something similar while Chloe whined about how she didn't want to join a rugby team. Tahira just nodded along like she was listening and not zoning out. If one of them asked her to tell them what they'd just said, it wouldn't be difficult, they were both likely to just start talking about lads, that's what most of their conversations dissolved into.

"I'm guessing your proper mates aren't that happy about you joining up then?" It bothered Tahira that Chloe referred to Alya and her crew as her 'proper mates'. Lately, she'd say she was better mates with Chloe, Razia and the others in her year than Alya's crew. Chloe must have been sat on the table behind them at lunch and heard the crew complaining about Tahira even considering joining the team.

"Yeah, but that shocks no one, does it? They've always got something to say about everyone's choices about everything," Tahira rolled her eyes and continued. "I don't know why I even still hang around them." There was a chance they wouldn't pick up on the minor cry for help to get away from them, but luckily, Chloe did.

"Just come sit with us instead then, we won't have a go at you for everything you do." They were definitely closer to being Tahira's 'proper mates' than Alya and the gang were now.


End file.
